Southern California -- this just in

Los Angeles City Council candidate Rudy Martinez was taken to a hospital Thursday night after collapsing shortly after an appearance at a candidate forum with his opponent, Councilman Jose Huizar.

Martinez, 44, fell to his knees in the parking lot of the El Sereno Senior Center, said campaign spokesman George Gonzalez. He was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena shortly after 10 p.m. and stayed overnight for observation.

He was released Friday at around 7:30 a.m. The doctor who treated Martinez said the collapse was the result of stress and exhaustion and advised him to rest for a day, Gonzalez said.

“He has been walking [door to door] at a furious pace over the last three weeks. We believe it finally caught up to him,” he added.

Gonzalez said Martinez would return to the campaign trail on Saturday. Martinez, a businessman with a sushi bar in Eagle Rock and a bar in Highland Park, is challenging Huizar in the March 8 election. That campaign has been especially negative, with the two candidates lobbing multiple charges at each other.

Huizar and Martinez are running to represent the 14th Council District, which takes in such neighborhoods as Boyle Heights, El Sereno, Eagle Rock and parts of Mount Washington and Highland Park.